Asian Movements’ Statement on the Green Economy

Fight for Our Future! No Price on Nature! We are movements and organizations from Asia, waging struggles on various fronts and arenas to defend our rights, resist policies and projects that cause harm and destruction, and to fight for immediate priorities and demands, as well as profound transformation of our societies. We envision a social and economic system: • that is aimed at providing for the needs of people and aspirations for a humane, empowering and liberating life in a manner that respects the earth’s capacity to regenerate, and to sustain life based on the integrity of natural systems; • that is based on and promotes equity, parity, solidarity and mutual respect among people and nations regardless of gender, race and ethnicity, culture, capabilities and class; • that promotes sharing of land, water, forests, atmosphere, eco-systems and territories based on the principles of stewardship and not private ownership, and the rights of all people to equitable and responsible access to, and use of the commons; • where there is equitable and democratic control of economic resources; • where there is peace is based on justice and not the overcoming of conflict through the use of deception and military might; Our sufferings and struggles have been compounded by multiple, recurring global crises of food, energy, finance and climate. These crises are symptoms and results of the fundamental flaws and injustices of the global capitalist system. The recurring crises of the global capitalist system have spawned various efforts to save the system and keep generating profits, most recent of which is the “Green Economy” being proposed by global institutions and now the subject of debate in the Rio+20 process. We reject the “Green Economy” as proposed and envisioned for the following reasons: • The Green Economy is not characterized by a redistribution of the ownership and control of economic resources. It is premised on a highly inequitable and undemocratic structure where a few control a vast portion of resources – natural, economic, financial. • The Green Economy is not oriented towards providing for peoples’ needs in a manner that is in harmony with the environment and within the earth’s carrying capacity. Instead it upholds profit generation as the main motivation for economic undertakings, aggregate growth as the main measure of success, and markets as main determinants of what goods and services are sold and who can buy them. • A strong and sustainable global economy can only be founded on strong, vibrant and sustainable national and local economies. The Green Economy is premised on continued integration of national and local economies of South countries with global markets, resulting in the net outflow of resources and wealth from the South to the North, a race to the bottom in terms of wages and prices of our materials, and weak economies. Only Asian elites are benefiting from these kinds of national and local economies. • The Green economy does not recognize and account for discrimination and disparities based on gender, class, race and ethnicity, nor does it recognize social reproduction and activities outside of the public sphere such as the invisible work of women. Economies that are blind to these conditions will only serve to reinforce injustices arising from these. • The Green Economy will not green agriculture, feed the hungry, generate decent jobs or eliminate poverty. Instead it will distort entitlements in favor of those who can pay, cut subsidies in areas crucial to the poor and lead to the disintegration of local, diverse food systems. • The Green Economy does not recognize the principle that land, water, forests, atmosphere, eco-systems and territories should not be subjected to private ownership and control, nor does it recognize the rights of all to fair and sustainable access to and use of the commons. • In fact, the Green Economy is being defined on quite the opposite principle – to treat nature and the functions of nature as capital. This “natural capital” and accompanying low carbon technologies will supposedly be the new drivers of what will now be “green growth.” These propositions are supposedly what primarily differentiate the green economy from the “brown economy”. Capital by definition is owned, can be bought, sold, traded, on the basis of which financial instruments can be derived several times over. The proposal to treat nature and the capacities and functions of nature as capital is clearly intended to subject them to private ownership, and to package them as commodities for trading in global markets and for profit generation. • This Green Economy will definitely not result in “improved human well-being and social equity while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.” • Instead, the Green Economy will raise the commodification, privatization and financialization of nature and concentration of control over nature by elites to new heights. o Commodification, privatization and financialization of natural resources have been happening for some time. The Green Economy will deepen these processes expand them to include all resources that are crucial to life, e.g., water, biodiversity, atmosphere, forests, lands, seeds, etc. ; the Green Economy will intensify the globalization of the right to own and monopolize these resources , globalization of such markets, and globalization of impacts. o Commodification, privatization and financialization of whole eco-systems and specific functions of nature has just began, as exemplified by REDD. The Green Economy will complete, consolidate and globalize this process.